Cyclone/disaster

[pledm]

Hi all

I heard about this acouple of days ago and wonder why the TV news doesn`t say anything,this is amazing the amount of people dead;

Myanmar believes cyclone killed at least 10,000: diplomat

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government has a provisional death toll of 10,000 from this weekend's devastating cyclone, with another 3,000 missing, a diplomat said on Monday after a briefing from Foreign Minister Nyan Win.

"The basic message was that they believe the provisional death toll was about 10,000 with 3,000 missing," a diplomat present at the meeting told Reuters in Bangkok.

So sad.Our prayers go out for them.

[pledm]

An update;

Myanmar cyclone toll climbs to nearly 22,500

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government raised its death toll from Cyclone Nargis on Tuesday to nearly 22,500 with another 41,000 missing, nearly all of them from a massive storm surge that swept into the Irrawaddy delta.

The United Nations' World Food Program began doling out emergency rice in Yangon and the first batch of more than $10 million worth of foreign aid arrived from Thailand on Tuesday, but a lack of specialized equipment slowed distribution.

Despite the magnitude of the disaster -- the most devastating cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people died in Bangladesh -- France said the ruling generals were still placing too many conditions on aid.

"The United Nations is asking the Burmese government to open its doors. The Burmese government replies: 'Give us money, we'll distribute it.' We can't accept that," Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told parliament.

In New York, Rashid Khalikov, U.N. humanitarian affairs coordinator, appealed to Myanmar to waive visa requirements for U.N. aid workers trying to get into the country.

"Unfortunately we cannot tell you how many people are in need of assistance," he said. "We just clearly understand that it will probably be in the hundreds of thousands."

Of the dead, only 671 were in the former capital, Yangon, and its outlying districts, state radio said. The rest were all in the vast swamplands of the delta, which was hit by 190 kmh (120 mph) winds and an enormous storm surge.

"More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself," Minister for Relief and Resettlement Maung Maung Swe told a news conference in the rubble-strewn city of 5 million, where food and water supplies are running low.

"The wave was up to 12 feet high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages," he said, giving the first detailed description of the weekend cyclone. "They did not have anywhere to flee."

As many as 10,000 people died in one coastal town alone.

Information Minister Kyaw Hsan said the military were "doing their best" but analysts said there could be fallout for the former Burma's rulers, who pride themselves on their ability to cope with any challenge.

"The myth they have projected about being well-prepared has been totally blown away," said analyst Aung Naing Oo, who fled to Thailand after a brutally crushed 1988 uprising. "This could have a tremendous political impact in the long term."

U.S. President George W. Bush made a rare personal appeal to the junta to accept U.S. disaster experts who have so far been kept out.

"Our message is to the military rulers," Bush said. "Let the United States come and help you, help the people."

He said he was prepared to make U.S. naval assets available for search and rescue.

The White House later said the United States was committing $3 million through an aid agency to meet the most urgent needs, up from an initial emergency contribution of $250,000.

RULERS AT RISK?

Reflecting the scale of the crisis, the junta said it would postpone to May 24 a constitutional referendum in the worst-hit areas of Yangon and the delta.

However, state TV said the May 10 vote on the charter, part of the army's much-criticised "roadmap to democracy," would proceed as planned in the rest of the Southeast Asian nation, which has been under army rule for the last 46 years.

Its political plans have been slammed by Western governments, especially after the bloody suppression of protests in September.

The information minister said the government had sufficient stocks of rice despite damage to grain stored in the huge delta, known as the "rice bowl of Asia" 50 years ago when Burma was the world's largest exporter.

But in the delta, even villages that managed to withstand the worst of the winds are running out of food and water.

"There's not much food," one woman at a pineapple stall in Hlaing Tha Yar, an hour's drive west of Yangon, told Reuters.

In Yangon, people lined up for bottled water and there was still no electricity four days after the cyclone hit.

Prices of food, fuel and construction materials have skyrocketed and most shops have sold out of candles and batteries. An egg costs three times what it did on Friday.

"MASSIVE, TERRIBLE"

The disaster drew a rare acceptance of a trickle of outside help from the diplomatically isolated generals, who spurned such approaches after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Thailand flew in nine tonnes of food and medicine, the first foreign aid shipment, but a Reuters cameraman on the plane said supplies were unloaded by hand as no forklift trucks were available -- a sign the army may lack vital equipment.

Two Indian transport planes are due to fly in on Wednesday and more are on standby, officials in New Delhi said.

State media have made much of the army's response, showing soldiers manhandling tree trunks or generals climbing into helicopters or greeting homeless storm victims in Buddhist temples.

Aid agency World Vision in Australia said it had been granted special visas to send in personnel to back up 600 staff in the impoverished country.

"This is massive. It is not necessarily quite tsunami level but in terms of impact of millions displaced, thousands dead, it is just terrible," World Vision Australia head Tim Costello said.

[Summer]

This is the first I've heard of this as well! I wonder why I haven't heard of this on the news as well? The news really isn't reliable these days.

[pledm]

Well more news about this and its bad,also the problem for help has been the military/government of this country,so many restrictions;

Burma death toll could exceed 100,000

The death toll from the cyclone that struck Burma at the weekend could exceed 100,000, the US said.

Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, said 100,000 people had probably been killed, with a large number of others unaccounted for, in a “humanitarian disaster of enormous proportions”. He said that Burma’s junta would “compound the disaster” by denying access to relief groups.

“This is not about politics, this is about helping people in need. And the junta should please open its doors and let the international community provide humanitarian assistance to the people in Burma because they need it desperately.”

The grim forecast came as United Nations agencies expressed frustration that their efforts to help the 1m survivors in need were being hindered by the junta’s reluctance to let foreign experts into the country.

Aircraft carrying aid from the UN’s World Food Programme were poised to take off for Burma on Thursday. The regime had given clearance for a small four-member team of UN workers from Asian countries to enter Burma to assess the situation. But a fifth UN worker from a western country was denied permission to enter the country. The UN was seeking military permission for 40 disaster relief experts to bring emergency aid to remote areas.

EDITOR’S CHOICE
Burma to allow US aid airlift - May-08Fears rise as rice delta destroyed - May-07In depth: Burma - Nov-15Burma regime accused of slowness - May-07US navy stands by with Burma aid - May-07Burma aid effort poses dilemma for generals - May-07Five days after tropical cyclone Nargis devastated the rice-growing Irrawaddy delta and battered its largest city, emergency water, food, tents and other relief materials have trickled in from neighbouring countries.

“The government authorities have never had to deal with a disaster on this scale before,” said the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “It’s a major logistical challenge.”

The US has provided satellite imagery following a request from the government in Burma and received permission Thursday to begin flying military aircraft carrying aid into the country, according to a Reuters interview with Boonsrang Niumpradit, Thai Supreme commander.

Bernard Kouchner, France’s foreign minister, has proposed invoking the UN “responsibility to protect” clause and delivering aid directly without official approval – an idea he said the UN was discussing.

Official estimates put the death toll at 22,000 at least, with 40,000 still missing. An estimated 1m are homeless and in urgent need of drinking water, food and shelter.

There is increasing concern that bodies, many of which are lying in the waterways, could spread disease.

“The Burmese military is concerned about white faces...seeing what they’re doing,” said Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese political analyst exiled to Thailand. Others pointed to bureaucratic paralysis. “Only three people in the whole country can make decisions, one of whom is the senior general’s astrologer,” one foreign aid worker said.

Residents of Rangoon, Burma’s largest city, face weeks without electricity, a worsening drinking water shortage and spiralling food prices. The authorities have begun to repair the city’s shattered infrastructure and Reuters reporting Thursday morning that sporadic power and water supplies had begun to return.

State-controlled news­papers have appealed for patience. But among middle-class residents, anger is growing against the military, which they say has been slow to respond.

“If one person came out holding a poster for a protest, dozens of soldiers and police came out in five minutes,” said Ludu Sein Win, a prominent retired journalist. “But now nobody can help us. They say we have to do everything by ourselves.”

Residents had no electricity or water, he said. “A big tree fell on the roof of my house, but when I told the municipal authorities they told us we must clear it ourselves.”

Trucks in the city are selling water to poor families at high prices. Food prices have rocketed in local markets and some families have nothing.

But Ma Thanegi, another prominent writer, said it was unfair for middle-class Rangoon residents to gripe, given the unprecedented scale of the disaster.

“The government can’t be helping the people who are rich enough to have phones,” she said.

“There are a lot of people without homes, with nothing at all. I think the government is doing the best they can with the resources, expertise and technical support they have. There is no experience of anything on this scale before.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008